topic Re: Drawings generated from 3D PCB lack silk screen layer. in Fusion Electronics Forum

Drawings generated from 3D PCB lack silk screen layer.

gmdouglas — Mon, 19 Dec 2022 17:09:12 GMT

I've created a PCB in Fusion 360, then pushed it to a 3d PCB, and created a drawing from that 3d geometry.

It's all very nice, but I can't find a way to have the PCB silk screen show up in the drawing.

How do I add the silk screen as a layer or other entity? Drawings without this information are not very useful for generating documentation for an electronics design.

Thanks~

Re: Drawings generated from 3D PCB lack silk screen layer.

yqliu — Thu, 22 Dec 2022 08:29:34 GMT

@gmdouglas , this is a limitation of Fusion drawing for now. It's one of the major features in our to-do list.

Re: Drawings generated from 3D PCB lack silk screen layer.

Cougar20 — Wed, 19 Jul 2023 14:32:14 GMT

Hello there,

a little bump on this topic since I'm evaluating Fusion360 currently for our company and do like it for the most part.

But today i ran into the same issue regarding this.

I can see the silkcreen(s) on my 3D PCB as canvases, but when i create a drawing from it the silkscreen does not show up. For documentation purposes it's kind of necessary that we can add the silkscreen layers/canvases to our drawings.

I know (as a workaround) that you can add a picture of the silkscreen layer as decal to a surface, but this is a rather tedious and time consuming process to get it done correctly. And not to mention unnecessary complicated.

@yqliu

Can we expect this feature in the near future?

Thanks.

Kind regards

Re: Drawings generated from 3D PCB lack silk screen layer.

yqliu — Thu, 20 Jul 2023 00:16:09 GMT

Hi @Cougar20 , we have been discussing this requirement continuously together with other drawing requirements. It is one of the important features we planned for next year.

Re: Drawings generated from 3D PCB lack silk screen layer.

kterryTYYYC — Wed, 22 May 2024 19:55:34 GMT

Bump ... I need this feature as well.

Re: Drawings generated from 3D PCB lack silk screen layer.

danielboe63PST — Sat, 29 Mar 2025 12:20:38 GMT

How is it going here? Next year is over now 😄

Re: Drawings generated from 3D PCB lack silk screen layer.

vaxamis866 — Sun, 30 Mar 2025 11:25:02 GMT

I need this too.

Re: Drawings generated from 3D PCB lack silk screen layer.

melisa.kaner — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 12:05:47 GMT

Hi everyone!

Thanks so much for posting on the forums. I agree that the silkscreen is incredibly important for documenting your PCB designs and we should do better here. To ensure I understand the breadth/depth of these requirements (as well as understand your general needs from a documentation workflow), I'd love to jump on a quick call to discuss. If interested, please DM me and I will organise some time to chat more!

Best regards,

Melisa (Fusion Electronics Product Management)

Re: Drawings generated from 3D PCB lack silk screen layer.

Andy.Cutter — Mon, 26 May 2025 23:51:41 GMT

Hi @melisa.kaner,

Was there any progress made with this?
It is an extremely important feature as many have mentioned.

Thanks,
Andy.

Re: Drawings generated from 3D PCB lack silk screen layer.

melisa.kaner — Tue, 27 May 2025 13:57:22 GMT

Hi there @Andy.Cutter, we are actively investigating this and I would really love to hear your thoughts / insights to help drive this investigation. I'll DM you about the possibility of a quick call to understand more. Our May release showing reference designators is just the first step here and there is definitely more to come in this area.

Best regards,

Melisa (Fusion Electronics product management)

Re: Drawings generated from 3D PCB lack silk screen layer.

connor_d_brown3 — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 17:32:57 GMT

Was this feature incorporated in the most recent Fusion360 Updates?

Re: Drawings generated from 3D PCB lack silk screen layer.

jorge_garcia — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 16:34:48 GMT

Hi @connor_d_brown3 ,

I hope you're doing well. It was implemented in the most recent release of Fusion. Try it out.

Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Best Regards,

Re: Drawings generated from 3D PCB lack silk screen layer.

kterryTYYYC — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 11:53:21 GMT

Thanks for the update Jorge, I tried this, and unless I'm missing something it looks like it's only picking up Layer 25 (NamesTop) but not Layer 21 (SilkscreenTop). In our particular use case we create a solid box on the silkscreen layer to indicate where to place a label, I would like to be able to call this out in assembly documents. Thanks much!

Re: Drawings generated from 3D PCB lack silk screen layer.

jorge_garcia — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 20:09:13 GMT

Hi @kterryTYYYC ,

I hope you're doing well. Did you edit the layer sets to include whatever layer has those labels in order to include it in the 3D PCB? The drawings should show whatever has been added to the Editable layer set for silkscreen.

If you don't want to mess with that, for a test could you try putting that rectangle and text on a silkscreen layer?

Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Best Regards,

Re: Drawings generated from 3D PCB lack silk screen layer.

connor_d_brown3 — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 15:06:27 GMT

Currently, the Silkscreen Top and Bottom are not selectable:

Re: Drawings generated from 3D PCB lack silk screen layer.

jorge_garcia — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 18:00:43 GMT

Hi @connor_d_brown3 ,

I hope you're doing well. You have to edit the layer sets in the 2D PCB.

You can reach this by clicking the gear icon on the top right of the layers panel.

Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Best Regards,

Re: Drawings generated from 3D PCB lack silk screen layer.

connor_d_brown3 — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 18:11:57 GMT

I have all three of my text (same for bottom as well) Layers in the set.

Can anyone else confirm that if the silkscreen is showing on the 3D PCB, that when you push the 3D PCB to a drawing, the silkscreen will always show on top? Was not able to figure out how to get it to not do that:

Re: Drawings generated from 3D PCB lack silk screen layer.

jorge_garcia — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 18:31:48 GMT

Hi @connor_d_brown3 ,

This is a known limitation of the current drawings implementation, the silkscreen characters look best from the orthogonal perspectives (up, down, left, right). I'll bump the ticket for this.

Let me know if there's anything else I can do for you.

Best Regards,

Betreff: Drawings generated from 3D PCB lack silk screen layer.

AwiIngo — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 15:16:00 GMT

Hello @jorge_garcia,

as far as i understand the silkscreen in the 3D PCB and a drawing generated from it, should be identical?

But it seems to be not working for me.

This is my process:

1. Create PCB and add all layers i want, to "TopSilkscreen"

2. Push to 3D PCB

3. Resulting 3D PCB

4. 3DPcb: Drawing -> From Design

5. Base View Settings

6. Resulting Drawing

none of the four "Text on t...." texts
also the print around the LEDs (tPlace) is missing

7. Packages hidden inside the drawing

Only component designators are visible which are located on tNames aswell

Am i doing something wrong or is this the result as currently intended?

Thank you and best regards.

Re: Drawings generated from 3D PCB lack silk screen layer.

LloydTravisSmith — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 16:36:47 GMT

I am having the opposite problem, and I assume this is related to the software update to make silkscreen layers appear on a drawing. I have tried everything I can think of to prevent silkscreen layers from the PCB from appearing in an assembly drawing of a PCB inside a plastic enclosure, but they remain. The silkscreen appears in the drawing even though I disabled display of all silkscreen layers in the 2D PCB and recreated the 3D PCB. I confirmed that the silkscreen does not appear in the 3D PCB. Then, I include the 3D PCB in a new design with the 3D PCB inside the plastic enclosure, and create a drawing from the assembly. The silkscreen text appears as through it is printed on the outside of the plastic enclosure. I am unable to attach images of all the steps, but here are the steps I took: 1) disabled the display of tNames, tValues, bNames, bValues in the 2D PCB. 2) Push to 3D PCB. 3) Include 3D PCB in a new design with the plastic enclosure, confirming that the unwanted silkscreen layers are not visible. 4) Create a new drawing from the visible parts of the assembly. 5) Observe that unwanted silkscreen elements appear in the drawing as if they were printed on the outside of the enclosure.